Colorado's Healthy School Meals for All (HSMA) program provides free breakfast and lunch to all students, regardless of economic background, and aims to strengthen farm-to-school systems and school food service workers' pay. After unexpected increases in student participation, the program faced a significant budget shortfall that raised warning…

Background: School meals have demonstrated positive effects on dietary habits of children and adolescents, yet opportunities to increase participation exist. Little is known about how participation differs by race/ethnicity or by acculturation levels, thus this study aims to identify acculturation and race/ethnicity on school meal participation of…

Background: The National School Lunch and School Breakfast programs reduce food insecurity and improve dietary intake. During the COVID-19 pandemic, school meals were provided to all children at no cost, regardless of income. This policy is known as Healthy School Meals For All (HSMFA). The purpose of the study was to examine the feasibility of a…

The National School Lunch Program (NSLP) is the Nation's second-largest food and nutrition assistance program, providing billions of meals to tens of millions of children and adolescents each year. USDA, Economic Research Service (ERS) periodically reports on NSLP policies and program operations, often after major changes to the program's rules…

FNS Research Corner provides a continuing series to summarize recently completed and current research conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) in the area of Child Nutrition Programs (CNPs). Summaries of recently completed research projects and in-progress research are provided in this article.